The day started with me rushing around ironing and packing, but we left in good time. It only took 30 minutes to drive to Machynlleth, and so we had plenty of time to pay for parking at the storage centre and then wait for our train.
There was time between trains at Shrewsbury to grab a sandwich and cup of tea before catching the train to Manchester. We then successfully negotiated the tram system in order to transfer to Victoria Station where we caught an earlier train than planned. As our tickets were not for a specific train, we reached Hebden Bridge half an hour before we expected.
The Croftmill apartments are just about 10 minutes walk from the station and are absolutely delightful. The building was once an old steam powered woollen mill. Now it's been converted into about 20 two-bedroomed apartments. There's everything you need, including dishwasher and all the aforementioned unexpected food.
Hebden Bridge is slightly weird, but in a good way. You can see that it used to be a dour northern industrial Pennine valley town, but now it's been gentrified and has been taken over by coffee shops, restaurants, organic and vegetarian/vegan food shops, plus the usual plethora of charity shops. It does still boast a real old-fashioned butchers, but only one small convenience store so the natives must go elsewhere for their main food shopping, unless there's a Tesco or similar hidden away on the outskirts.
We have now explored the town, which is only small and have bought some chilled lasagnes for dinner. We'll probably eat out tomorrow but tonight we're happy to spend some time enjoying the apartment and watching TV before we have dinner.
